Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has clamped down on social media and news Web sites — the main outlets for debate and dissent in the West Bank — with a vaguely worded decree that critics say allows his government to jail anyone on charges of harming “national unity” or the “social fabric.”
Rights advocates said the edict, issued last month without prior public debate, is perhaps the most significant step yet by Abbas’ government to restrict freedom of expression in the autonomous Palestinian enclaves of the West Bank.
A Palestinian prosecutor denied that the decree is being used to stifle dissent and said that a new law on electronic crimes was needed to close legal loopholes that in the past allowed offenders, such as hackers, to go unpunished.
However, the government has blocked 30 Web sites in the past month, according to the Palestinian Center for Development and Media Freedoms (MADA).
Most of the sites were affiliated with Abbas’ two main rivals — a former aide-turned-foe, Mohammed Dahlan, and the Islamic militant group Hamas, MADA said.
A few of the blocked sites had supported the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria.
Five journalists working for news outlets linked to Hamas were detained this week and charged with breaching the new law, according the lawyer of one of those arrested and an official in the association of Palestinian journalists.
Separately, four other journalists were called for questioning about social media posts critical of government policy.
One of those summoned, photojournalist Fadi Arouri, who works for China’s Xinhua news agency, said he was shown his Facebook posts and was told that the authorities are concerned “these expressions could lead to disorder in the society.”
Ammar Dweik, head of the government-appointed Palestinian Independent Commission for Human Rights, said the new law is “one of the worst” since the Palestinian autonomy government was established in 1994.
It’s “a big setback to the freedoms in the West Bank,” he said, citing the vague definition of the purported crimes, the wide authority given to the security forces, the large-scale blocking of news Web sites and the harsh punishments.
Rights groups have repeatedly accused Abbas and former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat of restricting freedoms and engaging in human rights violations, such as arbitrary arrests of political opponents, mistreatment in detention and cracking down on peaceful protests.
The new decree stipulates prison terms ranging from one year to life for those who use digital means for a range of all-encompassing offenses.
The list includes endangering the safety of the state or the public order as well as harming national unity or social peace.
Abbas, 82, issued the decree at a time when he is facing new domestic challenges to his rule.
Dahlan and Hamas have overcome their old rivalry to team up against Abbas with an emerging power-sharing deal in Gaza, the territory Abbas’ Fatah movement lost to Hamas in 2007.
Polls routinely show that two-thirds of Palestinians want Abbas to resign. He was elected to five years in 2005, but stayed on, arguing that political disagreement with Hamas prevented new elections.
With parliament paralyzed as a result of the political split, Abbas has ruled by decree.
Abbas also failed to deliver on his central promise of setting up a Palestinian state in talks with Israel.
Gaps widened since Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu came to power in 2009, while a promise by the administration of US President Donald Trump to revive long-dormant negotiations appears to have fizzled.
Officials in Abbas’ office declined to comment on the new decree or on long-standing complaints that Abbas and his government restrict freedoms in the West Bank.
The officials said it was up to law enforcement and the Cabinet to comment.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion